Is Learning Really Easier Than Ever Before?
Everything is Math Class Now
Remember math class back when you were a kid? Particularly that moment when you saw a calculator for the first time and suddenly asked yourself the question… “Why do I need to learn this… when I have THIS now?”. Immediately followed by hand waving from parents or teachers as to why (most never to a satisfactory answer).
Well, may I now introduce you to the era we all now live in?? The era where there is a “calculator” for literally everything. Writing? Check. Music? Yup. Programming? Oh you better believe it. Cooking, mixology, translation? Yeah that too, and for everything else, it is surely being worked on.
So that question you had back when you were a kid? The question of “do I actually have to learn this”? This isn’t a question anymore… it’s the beast we have to fight.
The Beast of Temptation
It’s true what many are proclaiming right now. The old barriers to learning have all but completely disappeared. Answers to any question or struggle you come across takes only a couple moments (and often are available for FREE). But in place of those old struggles we now have what I call: The Beast of Temptation.
And oh what a foe this new beast is. Any skill you’ve dreamed of, it’s already a master at. A master willing and waiting to do the work for you and produce the result you dreamed of. But in order to learn for yourself you have to constantly reject its help. Instead, choosing to spend hours of work and lower quality output as you slowly gain competence. As if you’re struggling to walk on a summer’s day, while this beast is offering you a free car ride with AC each step of the way.
For example, let’s look at writing. Yes, a piece that is created by an AI is only at best 80% as good as one made by a master. But if you were to sit down and learn to write, when faced with an easy button you can press at any point in time and get something that is FAR better than what your current skill level would be able to produce… will you have the tenacity to keep pushing on for years to come? Or will you eventually give in to the everpresent temptation to “have the AI do it for me” and throw in the towel?
A Tale of Two Skills
In this very moment as I write this piece I struggle with this very temptation. I have all of my own thoughts laid out in a document, I’ve done all the brainstorming, and I know that if I were to just ask my agent to write this article it would do a magnificent job. And you who read this right now, would quite enjoy it.
But I resist that urge because I know that becoming a master at this skill of writing will enable me to craft far more inspiring stories and experiences. Getting to the point where I can reach that 100% instead of the 80% the AI alone is limited to, is far worth the time and effort. For me.
However, another skill I long wished to learn was being able to speak and read Japanese. I’ve long been a fan of their culture, anime, food… so how fun would it be to hold a conversation with the people I meet there? I’ve tried 3 times to learn the language and gotten further towards my goal with each try. However, right before I was about to start my 4th bout that question crept into my mind: “do I really need to learn this?”. Would spending years studying so that I could hold a conversation as easily as I do in English be worthwhile?
In this instance, I had to come to terms that it likely is not. I was far more interested in the end result than what I would gain in the process of learning Japanese. Settling for the 80% that AI is very very quickly becoming capable of doing i reckoned was good enough for me. That it would be better to focus on other things instead.
It was a really tough decision to make after having spent hundreds of hours flipping through kanji over the years. But I realized that the concept of learning has fundamentally changed. The end result, by itself, is no longer enough to justify the struggle—there is (or will) be an AI for that. You learn because you know the journey will be worthwhile. You learn because you want to get that extra 20% that there is no other way to attain. You learn because this is a skill you want to define you.
Beware The Riptide
So is learning easier than ever? Absolutely. Our tools and the access to them has never been better. But the decision to learn something has never been more difficult. Plus, we live in a world where the necessity to learn something is quickly vanishing. Learning is something we have to be intentional about.
The danger isn’t that we’ll let AI do a task for us. The danger is that, like a riptide, we’ll drift into the convenience available to us. That the perseverance required to learn a skill or art we’re adamant about will be worn down. Or that we’ll be so blind as to not realize what we’re saying no to, each time we ask the machine to do something for us.
So before you have the machine do something in your stead, simply take a moment to be cognizant and ask: Am I learning to be the pilot, or am I content to be the passenger?
Avoid the riptide.